What a LinkedIn Conversation Taught Me About Presence at Work

The conversation was supposed to be simple.

A consultant colleague, Krista Spence, reached out for feedback on her LinkedIn presence. She wanted a few pointers, maybe some guidance on how to show up more clearly on a platform that seems to shift every other week, especially now that AI is changing how people write, post, and engage with one another.

I said yes and did what I often do when I want to be useful: I prepared. A lot.

I came into our call with pages of notes, talking points, and ideas about niche, messaging, posting cadence, and all the usual marketing manager things. I am still fairly new to my role, a relatively green marketer in the grand scheme of my career, and I wanted to be thoughtful. More than anything, I wanted to offer something that would actually help.

Then the conversation started, and it went in a different direction.

Leadership Presence Begins with Listening

As we talked about work and what energizes Krista, I started paying attention to how she was listening. Despite our physical distance, she was fully there. She built on what I had just said, reflected it back in her own words, and made room for ideas to take shape as we spoke. At some point, without really noticing, I stopped looking at my notes.

I found myself leaning in too.

Even though we were supposed to be talking about Krista’s social media presence, she asked questions that opened up new thinking for me in the moment, things my carefully prepared notes never could have anticipated. What I expected to be a tidy marketing conversation became something much more real and alive.

I did not fully understand it until later, but she had made the conversation feel like a genuine exchange instead of a one-way consult.

I kept thinking about that exchange, especially because it gave me a clearer picture of something I recently learned in Conversant’s Emerging Leader program. The program expanded my understanding of what leadership looks like. It is not always loud or obvious. Sometimes it shows up in the way someone listens, stays present, or helps a conversation become more honest and useful than either person expected.

Revisiting Marcus Buckingham’s Love + Work has deepened that reflection for me. His writing gives language to something I have been noticing in real time: some of the most meaningful moments at work have less to do with polish or performance and more to do with whether we are actually present with each other and with ourselves.

Buckingham writes about “I love that” moments, the moments when something in your work clicks and you feel fully engaged in what you are doing.

That conversation was one of those moments for me.

Authenticity, Professional Presence, and Meaningful Connection

On the surface, we were talking about LinkedIn: visibility, engagement, content planning, and how to keep up with a noisy professional platform. But the conversation moved quickly into more personal territory. We talked about burnout, uncertainty, and the challenge of trying to understand where we fit in this particular moment in the world. We shared stories and recognized common ground. What began as a request for practical advice turned into a much bigger conversation.

One thing the Emerging Leader program has been sharpening for me is a broader understanding of what leadership actually looks like. I used to think it was mostly about being prepared, sounding confident, and having something useful to say. More and more, I am noticing leadership in quieter skills too: paying attention, asking thoughtful questions, and creating enough space for other people to think out loud, reflect, and contribute as the conversation unfolds.

That kind of presence changes a conversation, and it can change the work that comes out of it too.

When we talk about professional presence, especially online, it is easy to slip into performance mode. What should I say? How often should I post? What will get noticed, and liked, and commented on? Those are fair questions, but they are not the only ones worth asking.

A better question might be: how do I want people to experience me when we interact?

By the end of that conversation, I felt like I knew my colleague better as a human being. I had a clearer sense of Krista’s warmth, curiosity, and care, and I also walked away with ideas of my own.

That did not happen because of any especially clever strategy we discussed. It happened because of how we showed up with each other.

That is where visibility and authenticity meet.

If visibility is only performance, people can feel the distance. If authenticity stays private, no one has a chance to connect with it. But when presence is part of the equation, it becomes less about managing how you come across and more about building a real connection.

I am learning that in today’s workplace, authentic leadership and genuine human connection are critical drivers of employee engagement, collaboration, and organizational success.

What Emerging Leaders Can Learn About Leadership Presence at Work

Emerging leaders can easily miss the importance of this because we are taught to look for leadership in more obvious places: authority, polish, formal roles, tidy outcomes. That was certainly the message I absorbed in school, in sports, and in my early years at work. But leadership also shows up in much quieter ways, in how we listen, how we respond, and whether we are willing to stay with what is happening instead of rushing back to what we planned to say.

I think the same is true on LinkedIn and everywhere else we work and relate.

You do not need a perfectly polished point of view to connect with people. In most cases, people respond to someone who sounds clear, grounded, and real. They notice when they feel included in a thought rather than talked at from a distance.

That is what creates those “I love that” moments, the ones where work feels less like output and more like exchange, and where you can recognize yourself in both what you are doing and how you are doing it.

That may be one of the most important things Emerging Leader has helped me to practice right now: noticing that leadership often has less to do with managing impressions and more to do with how we meet the moment in front of us.

For those of us focused on leadership development, workplace culture, and organizational effectiveness, these moments of presence often create the strongest foundation for long-term growth.

Lately, I have been sitting with a few questions of my own:

• Where do you feel most alive in your work right now?
• When do conversations stop feeling transactional and start feeling generative?
• Where might you loosen your grip on preparation just enough to allow something unexpected to emerge?

So yes, prepare if that helps you. But do not be afraid to set the notes aside once the conversation is underway. Sometimes the most useful part is what you could not have scripted.

Maybe that is the real invitation: spend a little less energy trying to show up the right way, and a little more energy being present once you get there. The rest tends to unfold from that.

As leaders at every level continue navigating change, leadership presence at work may be one of the most valuable skills we can develop, not because it helps us appear more effective, but because it helps us create more meaningful human connections.

About The Author

MacKenzie Singer brings a rich blend of business insight, digital marketing experience, creative writing, and nonprofit program development to Conversant. Throughout her career in professional services and executive leadership development, she focuses on designing meaningful programs, shaping thoughtful communications, and supporting leaders through initiatives that strengthen connection and community.